Bloodbeat
by Lieutenant Kitsurubami
Summary: An original fiction based loosely on Resident Evil involving pandas attacking the world. Not nearly as random as it sounds, however. Please R&R.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: Recetly I was cleaning out my computer, and I found a story I had written a while ago. I challenged my friend to a "book-off," to see who could write a better story in a semester. I had loosely based my story on Resident Evil, just to make it easier to write. So, some themes and locations might be familiar, such as the Ecliptic Express, but instead of RE characters I used my friends and other people I knew. Parts of it you might not understand, and parts of it will downright confuse you. The geography is all from my memory, so nobody other than the ones who personally know the areas will recognize any of the details, and I would never expect you to. The more clever of those who read this might spot the allusion and understand the parody. If you know RE well enough, this story should eclict a few laughs, but this is by no means a gigglefest. I use a subtle sense of satire, and the story gets progressively darker as it goes on. Anything could happen.

I do not own any of the RE-related events woven into the fabric of the story, or the "load screen" text based loosely off of the games. And, since the characters are real people, I do not own any of them either. Cameo appearances belong to whatever mind thought them up in the first place, or to themselves. The original plot involving the takeover of the world is entirely mine, however, and may not be used without my express permission.

Without further ado, here it is.

* * *

Chapter one

The Harrowing

"_Are the echoing footsteps those of survivors?_"

* * *

I was doing some writing assignment for Mr. Boldt during homeroom. Most of the class was on the terrace above the gym; it was just me, Loden, Philip, Vivek, Wyllis and Mr. Boldt in the "mezzanine room". Vivek and Wyllis were playing soccer with a volleyball and Loden and Philip were talking about pickles and trying to steal the ball whenever they had the chance. Mr. Boldt was watching the students on the terrace, and (though he wouldn't admit it) the PE homerooms playing noodleball.

Suddenly, there was a scream from below. Philip just dismissed it as some sissy getting whacked too hard with a noodle. In my protagonistal wisdom, however, I suspected something much more sinister. I rushed to the railing to see what was going on, but it was too unclear. Panicking, I rushed down the stairs and across the terrace. Mr. Boldt yelled at me to come back, but in my urgence I didn't hear him. I careened down the second stairwell and turned a corner into the gym. I rushed forward, asking what was going on. Mr. Lopez stopped me and explained that nothing was wrong. As it turned out, some pansy really DID get hit too hard with a noodle. Some guy named Abdar Woogerg had swung too hard and hit himself on the back. The wiffleball had then hit his head, causing him to scream and cry like a schoolgirl who had just broken her favorite toy.

Disgruntled, I started back to the "mezzanine room". When I was crossing the terrace, I heard another girlish scream, this time from above. Yet again I rushed toward the source, hardly touching the stairs as I ran up them. I saw that Philip was crouched on the ground, the others huddled around him. Mr. Boldt turned around and briefed me.

Philip had tried to steal the ball from Vivek, but tripped and hit his arm on a desk.

"Ouch. Mr. Boldt, I think I need to go to the nurse," said Philip.

"For what?" asked Loden. "All you have is a bruise!"

"It's a big bruise! My arm really hurts!" Philip was starting to wail. Just then the window exploded and a panda garbed in ninja regalia jumped through. He pulled Philip's other arm off and ate it.

"Now my other arm hurts! Ow!" We were just standing there, speechless, as the panda kicked forward and snapped his spine.

"Never mind. Neither arm hurts anymore. Hey, what are you guys staring at?" Philip said just before the panda swatted his head off. His body slumped forward and his head hit a desk which stopped it rolling. The panda looked right at us, and we ran like frightened rabbits.

We all made it through the door, but Mr. Boldt tripped on the stairs. We never did find out what happened to him. Once we hit the terrace, we started shouting for everyone to run for their lives. We then ran to save ours.

Angie and Celeste were the closest to the door, so they died first. Celeste got her stomach slashed open. Angie was doing better, but that was only because she was so short that the panda kept missing her. Irritated, it fell forward and crushed her. It kicked Angie's corpse off the railing, and it hit Abdar. The fall was... cushioned, however, and he hadn't even noticed when the panda followed.

The rest of our class managed to get away, as well as Mrs. Anderson's. Mr Lopez' and Mr. Lomasney's classes were massacred.

Both surviving classes were running towards the doors when two more ninja pandas entered through them. Half of us were dead before we even knew what was happening. When we had realized what was happening, we headed for the library. A panda jumped in front of Talisha, but Chris pushed her out of the way and got his throat sliced open, spraying blood all over the floor. Vivek then slipped and fell right at the panda's feet. I still have nightmares about what happened to Vivek.

Talisha was caught off-balance, but I caught her and we all ran like fury. The pandas cut down any stragglers like rodents with lung infections. When we reached the library, we quickly locked the doors and barricaded them. There were no classes in the library at the time, though a gruesome bloodstain on the carpet clued me in on their fate. Everybody walked around, trying to calm down enough to think rationally.

We counted the survivors: Me, Loden, Talisha, Wyllis, Carly, Ellie, Josh, Sumit, Michael, Alyssa, Sara and Scott. Everybody else was dead, and probably were being eaten at that moment. We were starting to plan our escape when the doors started rattling. Sumit pulled a little remote out of his pocket and pressed the only button on it.

"Sumit! What are you doing?" Wyllis yelled. "We're about to DIE!"

"I know!" Sumit responded. "I just called for help from my hero!" Before any of us could ask him who his hero was, a hole was cut in the ceiling and a curly-haired geek dropped through.

"What seem to be the emergency?" he asked in an over-emphasized monotone voice.

Sumit responded before any of us could. "We're being attacked by pandas in ninja costumes!"

"Ninja pandas? Ugh! Not again! I just got back from an Alaskan hunting trip where I had to save my cousins from wolverines with my sweet bo-staff skills! Gosh!"

"How many did you kill?" asked Wyllis.

"Like fifty! What would YOU do in a situation like that?" Moderately miffed, he walked over to the door and tried to get out. He moved the barricade right when the panda slammed into it. The panda saw him and sliced his legs off.

"Now I can't show off my awesome dance moves! Jeez!" The panda stabbed him through the heart.

We tossed Sumit at the panda and ran for it. The panda exercised its ninja skills upon his body.

"Man," said Loden, "Karma's a (expletive)." We set a ladder up under Napoleon Dynamite's hole in the ceiling and climbed through before the panda saw us. Alyssa was last, and she lost her balance on the ladder, and both fell. She was immediately pounced on. We shimmied across the roof as quickly as possible. Along the way, I had a frightening vision... OF FLYING NINJA PANDAS!


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter two

The Endeavor

"_Are the only allies enemies?"

* * *

_

As it turned out, there were no flying ninja pandas. It was a fairly uneventful journey, with the only thing of note happening being a bird landing on Sara's head, almost causing her to fall into a skylight. We walked until we hit the northern edge of the main building. We climbed down on some machinery, watching everywhere for approaching pandas. On our way through the vocational wing, we found another group of survivors. We now had Summer, Seth, Alex, Shane, Amber and Tylor in our group. We exited through the northern set of doors and started off toward the swimming pool.

When we neared the structure, Seth spoke out. "Wait. Do we really want to risk being eaten by ninja panda sharks?"

Josh concurred. "We have no way of knowing if our school was the only thing attacked or not." Seeing the logic, the rest of us nodded and we walked past the building. As we were about to pass the middle school, Carly stopped.

"This is stupid. There's no way those pandas could have attacked everything in town at once. We need to warn those at Kennedy," she said.

"No. If Kennedy has been infiltrated, then we'll all be killed as soon as we open the door," argued Loden.

Scott stepped forward. "Loden's right. Even if Kennedy _hasn't_ been attacked yet, warning them would make things worse. We're proof that some can survive and escape if everyone is spread out in different rooms, but how long do you think people can survive massed together, walking over open terrain? All we can do is wait and hope."

"Hope. It's a good thing to have," said Talisha.

"You guys don't understand! How can we just walk by, possibly dooming hundreds to a horrible fate? We have to _do_ something!" Carly shouted.

"And what do you suggest we do?" I asked.

"Tell them of the approaching evil. Maybe they won't be able to escape, but at least they'll be prepared!"

"Prepared to do what?" Loden asked, incredulous. "Escape is the only option we have against these freaks."

"No! We can fight back! Maybe even eliminate them!"

"Are you kidding?" asked Shane. "We can't do anything against these things!"

"We can try! And even if the students do die, at least they'll know beforehand and have a chance to fight back."

"And die without hope. You know there's no possible way for them to-"

"Stop it!" yelled Summer. "Look what you're doing to her!" We stopped arguing as soon as we looked at Carly. She was shaking so much that she was having trouble standing. She started to sob.

"I'm just t-trying not to be so selfish as to save ourselves and leave innocent p-people to die. I only want to save as many people as I can, b-but you keep... antagonizing me."

There was an awkward silence. Then Loden said "I'm sorry. I was concentrating on my own survival so much that I lost sight of everyone else's."

"Me too. You can't blame us, though. It's human nature to be self-preserving. Not everyone is as compassionate as you," Amber spoke softly, trying not to provoke her.

This seemed to calm Carly down. We kept moving - _past_ Kennedy. Screams emanated from the windows, and Carly started to cry again. Sara walked next to her to comfort her. We passed a few ground-level classrooms and I noticed something - one of the rooms didn't have any noise coming from it. I had an idea.

"Stop," I said. "Maybe Carly's right. Maybe we_ do_ have a chance to fight back." I then made my observations known.

"Let's do it!" said Alex. "What do we have to lose?"

"Our lives?" Michael interjected sarcastically, but nobody paid him any attention.

We walked over to the window and saw that the classroom was, in fact, empty. "This should be our base of action," I suggested. "Look around the room for anything that can be used as a weapon."

"Who wants to kill some pandas?" Tylor yelled exuberantly.

I grinned at the phrase I would have thought funny just a few hours before. The world had gone horribly wrong, and revenge... Revenge would be sweet.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter three

The Infiltration

"_Fear is the least of your troubles."

* * *

_

We didn't find any weapons; due to some cruel twist of fate, we had chosen a room _without_ eighteen assault rifles hanging conveniently in a closet. We had to settle with breaking the legs off of desks for use as clubs.

Alex "volunteered" to stay behind and guard our safe room. Actually, we forced him at deskpoint to stay in the room. We knew that if we ended up in a fight, Alex would probably hurt us more than the pandas. We told him to lock the door behind us, only opening it if we knocked twice, then once, then twice again. He grudgingly agreed, and the rest of us walked into the corpse-strewn hallway. He closed the door behind us, and we walked off. I never saw him again.

We walked in no particular direction, since our goal was ultimately to kill as many pandas as possible. Sara suggested that we walk together in a tight circle, with everybody facing outward.

"Why?" asked Carly. "It's not like they'll sneak up behind us and slit our throats or anything." A panda then sneaked up behind her and slit her throat.

We had no real plan in our attack; it was just a bunch of frightened teenagers whacking a panda as hard as they could with pieces of desk. But we did it - we killed one. There was celebration, but it was muted, as Amber had been horribly injured. A claw had slashed down her legs, cutting through tendons and muscle. She could no longer walk, or even stand. That wasn't the worst of it, however - somebody's backswing had crushed several of her ribs, and another had smashed her face, closing one eye. She would live, though, if we made it out. She was bleeding profusely and we had to bind her wounds in order to proceed. Sara and Ellie were assigned to carry her.

We spent a few hours traveling the halls, checking every room for pandas. We didn't find any. When we entered the band room, however, we saw two pandas facing the other way, examining instruments. They hadn't noticed us, so we quietly backed out into the hallway.

"I have an idea," whispered Shane. "Follow me." We followed him into the nearest classroom, which we had just recently checked. He then explained the first part of his plan.

"All right. Here's the deal. Remember that Trojan Horse thing? It's the same idea, but using bamboo instead, because I don't think pandas naturally eat horses."

"Pandas don't usually eat humans, either, yet here we are," spoketh Michael, but again his sarcasm was wasted. We spent about twenty minutes hacking apart desks and taping the pseudo-wooden parts together into a large bamboo-shaped sculpture. We put chair wheels on the bottom and quietly wheeled it into the band room.

"Okay, the Trojan Bamboo is in the room. What happens next?" questioned Loden.

"Now we wait until the pandas begin to eat the shoot," answered Shane. "Then Tylor, Scott and I, who have cleverly been hiding inside, will jump out and - oh." We heard sounds of crunching wood coming from inside. "Maybe we should run for it?"

We ran for it. The pandas crashed after us a moment later. We turned a corner and set a quick trap - we flattened against the wall, ready to swing at the pandas as soon as they came by us. It worked on the first panda, which we took down quickly, but the second, more cautious panda saw what happened to its companion and took a more roundabout route around the corner, outside our reach. It charged quickly, skewering Wyllis through the neck and pinning him to the wall. It withdrew so quickly and strongly that it launched Wyllis' body into the opposite wall. Michael crushed its kneecap while it was distracted, causing it to fall over. Tylor whacked its neck with his club, snapping it.

Amber was bleeding again, far too much to be ignored. We had to spend an hour retying her bandages and lulling her to sleep so she could be carried without too much pain.

The halls were silent - eerily so. We expected to be ambushed around every corner, and it frightened us when we weren't. It was as if the pandas had vacated the building. We were exhausted, but we had swept over every room. We had just made the decision to exit the building when the intercom beeped.

"I see that some of you are still alive," said a voice. It was creepy and arrogant. I hated it. "Though I commend your efforts, I'm afraid you've killed a few of my valued pets. I will not allow you to escape." The lights went out, leaving it dark in the hall. "As you can see, it is now nighttime. The time of the panda. You'll not get in my way." The intercom shut off.

From one end of the hallway, we saw pandas coming after us. Dozens and dozens of them - far too many to fight. We turned the other way and climbed down a conveniently placed service ladder outside a window. Getting Amber down safely was a lot of trouble, but we made it before we were followed down. We started to run, north again.

"What about Alex?" asked Scott, running next to me. "We can't just leave him behind!"

"We have no choice!" I yelled back. "If we go back there, we'll be overrun! We need to move away from this desecrated place as soon as possible!"

So we ran. It was a moonless night, making travel difficult, especially for those carrying Amber. After ten minutes of confused running, we saw a slow-moving passenger train on the tracks. We made our way toward it. While we were running, I noticed that there were no cars on the road. _How much of the city was attacked? _I wondered.

In the middle of the vacated road, we heard snarling from behind us. Loden yelled, "Get onto the train! Hurry!" We heeded his command uncomplainingly. The train was moving at about five miles per hour, so the only trouble we had getting on involved Amber. We came to an exterior door emblazoned with the words "Ecliptic Express". We had no choice but to open the door and walk inside, ominous name or not. The door jammed behind us and the train started to gather speed. I had a really bad feeling about our decision, but it was too late to change my mind. We were trapped.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter four

The Eclipse

"_There is no way out. The only possibility is survival."

* * *

_

The car we had entered was empty, to our relief. There were no passengers, attendants or even luggage. All the lights were on their brightest setting, making everything look oversaturated and unreal. It was like walking into a dream.

Seth called out, seeing if there was anybody else nearby. We heard no response other than the wheels screeching in protest as they moved even faster. I looked out the window and saw that we had gone straight into a storm. Occasional flashes of lightning revealed terrain I thought unfamiliar.

The interior had a subtle Victorian flair. The seats had fancy designs sewn into them, and the wooden siding was beautifully carved. The wall lights were imitations of lamp sconces and the chandelier set in the center of the ceiling was truly a mastery of metalworking. Ignoring the motion of the train, it was like standing in a short English hallway full of chairs.

Those of us who were most exhausted slept while those of us with some energy left kept watch, just in case we weren't truly alone. Getting Amber onto the train had severely jarred her, and she was bleeding more than ever. Seth, who was also awake, used a shard of glass he fond to cut strips out of a seat back, ignoring his destruction of beauty. He tied them onto her wounds, trying to cause as little pain as possible while still tying a serviceable bandage. Amber had lost a lot of blood, and no longer did it seem she would survive.

Seth woke up Shane so he could sleep, but I couldn't have slept if I tried. I just sat with my head against the window, studying the strange terrain whenever the lightning permitted. I looked next to me, at Talisha sleeping so peacefully._ How can she do that?_ I wondered. I knew I couldn't. I wondered if I would ever sleep again. Though I was exhausted, I became restless. It was as if something inside me was telling me to run, to escape, to never be found again. I heard a sound from the car ahead of ours, and immediately stood up. I walked over to the door, silently so I didn't wake anybody up. I opened the door, just a crack, and looked inside. Oddly enough, I saw a man shuffling off in the other direction with an obvious limp._ A survivor? _Taking my chances, I opened the door all the way and started after him into a car identical to ours.

I grabbed his shoulder, and he stopped moving. It was then that I realized that I had done something incredibly foolish. He turned to face me, agonizingly slowly. I noticed the claws on his hands, and I had already covered half the distance to our car before I saw his fanged visage. He paused, then walked very slowly towards me.

"Holy (expletive)!" said Josh. "I'm getting out of here!" He opened a door in the middle of the car and jumped out. Normally he would have been able to roll and absorb the fall, but the train was moving extremely quickly. His legs were almost snapped off and he was driven into a hitchhiker at forty miles per hour. I shut the door behind him and turned to face the monster. Its shuffling limp prevented it from moving very quickly. Seth charged at it with his glass shard, bravely hacking into the creature's face. The attack would have stopped a man, but the beast kept going. Seth slashed furiously, but it was hardly slowed. It grabbed Seth and bit into his throat. He screamed until his windpipe was punctured. The monster feasted. Loden grabbed one of the few clubs we had brought with us and smashed it into the creature's head with such force that the head shattered. The body fell forward, a pool of blood spreading around it. Ellie suggested we start moving in case there were more of these creatures, or worse, pandas nearby. Everybody quickly agreed. We walked in the direction of where I had first seen the zombie, forward on the train. We passed through a few identical cars until we reached a narrow hallway. At the end of te hall was the control room, and two other doors were on the left side of the hall. One was labeled CONDUCTOR'S OFFICE and the other was simply ROOM 1. The conductor's office was locked, but the other door was unlocked. Loden and I entered.

The first thing we noticed was that there was a dead guy on the bed. Loden poked him and he didn't kill us, so we looked around te room. There was a lamp, a typewriter and a note on a desk in the corner. I walked over and picked up the note. It read:

MEMO

UMOJA

Those who are stationed at the Colorado branch may have noticed strange creatures in the testing area. These "Zombies" are incredibly dangerous and must be avoided at all costs. All personnel entering the testing area are required to carry a firearm for protection. These creatures, even when deposed, will regenerate and eventually come back to life unless one of the following methods are used:

I. DESTRUCTION OF HEAD

II. INCINERATION OF BODY

Kerosine flasks and lighters are available in the storage room closest to the testing sector for those who need it. Parties of three or more are suggested for traveling in the area. It should also be noted that those who sustain bites from these creatures metamorph into the same species after a long period of time due to a strange bacteria in the creatures' saliva. There is no cure for this infliction, so take utmost care not to get bitten.

I looked up to the sound of clacking, Loden was typing on the typewriter.

"What are you typing?" I asked him.

"I dunno. I just had an urge." He walked back into the hall. I looked at what he was typing and sighed.

Ol/Loden/Room l/Ol

O2/

O3/

"What does he think this is, Resident Evil?" I pondered aloud, then followed Loden back into the hall.

Half of us were still tired, the res full of adrenaline from the attack. It was still nighttime, so we decided to go back to our car to sleep. Once we got there, we immediately changed our minds, due to the corpses on the ground. It took as another minute to get back to the passenger car nearest the hallway.

"I'll keep watch," volunteered Loden.

"For what?" I asked. "We just checked the train, and it's deserted!"

"I'll watch and find out. Plus, we thought it was deserted before, and look what happened to Seth!" Seeing his point, we took our seats.

Again, sleep failed to take me. I just stared out the window and thought about the memo. _Zombies... In a testing area? What were they testing? Did they turn real people into those things? That's... sick. _My thoughts drifted off, and something struck me.

"Oh. Crap."

"What?" asked Loden, behind me.

I turned to him and said, "We've been on this train for far longer than ten hours. Yet look out the windows. How can it still be dark out? It's not natural, though. It's as if the sun has been blotted out. Like... smoke or ash or something like that, but it feels... wrong. Like an eclipse, a bad omen. It feels like... like death is coming for me."

"Are you afraid of death?" asked Loden.

"Before all this happened, I was, just a bit. But after nearly being killed several times, I've realized that as long as you have the will to survive, survival is always a possibility."

"That's odd," interjected Michael from across the hall. We turned to face him as he continued. "Even now, the thought of death gives me the screaming mimis."

"Michael?" asked Loden.

"What?"

"Shut up." Michael was about to give a scathing reply to this when the train gave a sudden lurch. The lights went out, then on again. It was obvious that we slowing down incredibly quickly. The train lurched again, waking up all the sleepers, then started shaking violently. Everybody who was standing fell over, and then everybody was struggling to orient themselves in an upright position. Then the train lurched one final time and stopped so abruptly that most of us were launched into the seats in front of us. Everybody stood up and filed into the aisle, some quite shaken.

"What's that smell?" asked Summer. Then we smelled it too - gasoline. I opened the side door and dived out as fast as my legs could propel me. Others jumped out behind me, and there was a mad rush to get away from the train. Then the engine exploded. Flames shot down the length of the train faster than seemed physically possible. Those of us who hadn't taken cover behind nearby stones almost succumbed to the intense heat. Sara and Ellie, who had to carry Amber, didn't make it out in time, and Shane was in the back of the car, and couldn't outrun the flames. All four of them perished in the fire.

The other survivors and I looked around in silence and saw that the train had jumped off the rails at a sharp turn and careened into a storage tank full of gasoline. There was a small, unremarkable building nearby that seemed to be connected to the tank by several rusted pipes at ground level. The rain had stopped, but the remaining chill combined with the heat from the flames, creating an uncomfortable climate. Not wanting to sit around in that, Tylor walked off towards the building, and the rest of us were quick to follow. When we reached it, we saw a large, ornate set of front doors. Above the building, there was a sign that proclaimed, simply,

UMOJA

The name seemed ominous, so we started off once again into the woods. In the unnatural darkness, the trees looked like gaunt figures reaching out to tear us apart. It had started to rain again, and we were lost. The forest twisted and turned like a labyrinth, and several times a bramble patch forced us to backtrack and find another path. We walked in silence, as if we had forgotten to speak.

Signs of civilization started to appear after a while. Several abandoned hunting cabins littered the woods, but the were too weathered for use. The sixth we came to was intact, but locked. I felt warmth through the door, indicating that someone had used it recently - or still was. Talisha found that the window to the right of the door was open, so she told us to wait as she went inside. I started to protest, but she was already inside. The rest of us waited outside with bated breath for a moment; Summer looked like she would climb in the window too. Suddenly, Talisha screamed and dived out the window, followed by a panda. This one was odd, with the white patches on its coat replaced by blue. Its claws were dripping with a fluid that looked as though it had the consistency of molasses. It looked like a deadly venom.

Luckily, the panda got its leg trapped in a bear trap that Talisha had nimbly leapt over. This time, I stood back to watch the melee instead of join the other six in attacking it. As only three of us had had time to grab their chair leg clubs, the rest had to make due with rocks and sticks. Tylor, who still had a club, whacked the panda's head a few times to disorient it. This, however, did not prevent the creature from slashing his leg, the wound saturated with the sickly-looking black venin. He fell back, horrified at the sight of the wound, which seemed to be smoking. The wound gave off a nasty stench that I could smell from several yards away.

I skirted around the fight, careful not to get close enough to accidentally get hit by a rock. The panda was still caught in the rusted trap, but its flailing kept anyone from getting close enough to finish it off. Turning away, I examined Tylor's vorpal wound. The claw had gone straight through skin, tendon, and muscle to clack painfully against the bone. He wasn't bleeding, oddly enough, but seemed to secrete more of the black toxin, which oozed slowly down his leg. He lay back against a tree, moaning constantly from the pain. Suddenly, his eyes opened wide, staring with dread behind me in what seemed a silent scream. Alarmed, I started to turn, but it was too late. The next thing I knew, there was an excruciating pain in my back, spreading all throughout me, causing my muscles to spasm painfully all over my body. I slowly looked down, just in time to see a giant claw burst through my chest, then withdraw with a sickening squelch. I felt nothing but the purest agony. My eyes rolled back into my head and I collapsed into darkness.


End file.
